Paris, France //
Robbing the money train (and other short stories) - Part 1
How to survive the festive season in Paris
Date December 2008
Posted September 2010
Posted September 2010
Crowd-surfing the entire length of a metro car is one thing; returning across the blanket of upheld hands, collecting the keys you dropped on the way down and completing a forward roll is entirely another. Grinning like madmen, quantum-x and Hount reached for the cider, their descent from the ceiling helped as the train lurched to a stop. Unfortunately for us this was where the train was now terminating. The frenzied party of drunken Paris youth spilled and skidded from the cars, quickly swamping the platform and drowning out the barks of the RATP seccas who'd laid in wait.
From one side of Paris to the other electronic signs were informing frustrated passengers that due to disturbances, Ligne 2 was now shut down. The mob followed a draft of cool evening upwards and out of the station and into the streets where the party was displaying riot tendancies. Dismayed gendarmes tried in vain to control the ringleaders - meanwhile a police car was being summarily vandalised. Some dusty rubber-clad adventurers (Cataphiles fresh from the quarries below Paris) passed bottles of beer and nobody was in a rush to move on. Eventually a one or two hundred deep group decision was made: the party would continue on a different line. The TFL staff back home would never have tolerated the epidemic of barrier-hopping fare-evasion that ensued.
Cutting off from the masses in search of slightly more constructive misadventures, we (your author plus dsankt and q-x) returned to the Metro via a different station and, avoiding shouts from waiting passengers ("Ne vous faites pas mal!") descended sur la voie and ran off down the tunnel. Timing was about right, reaching the air vent near the much-revered abandoned station of St Martin just as a train swept in from the opposite direction. We ignored the much-photographed tiled signs, old posters and multi-level platforms, instead opening a hatch onto the street above. Back in the land of the living we were still on the move. This had been nothing more than an entertaining way to reach our eventual destination which, for now, must remain secret but doubtless will be revealed in due course.
The next day it all continued, TF and I listening from the bottom of the shaft to ds talking to the man on the street, trying to shake off his demands to know what we were up to: "Is ok, I am not the Police, you can tell the truth". ds continued to wrestle with the cover as he responded to the curious kebab shop owner's questions. Hardly surprising that he'd been inquistive - the manhole was right outside his shop. "No really, EDF! Bon soir." With a grating and a thud the outside noise was reduced to a hushed murmur and we could continue down the two ladders and into the power tunnels. Above us normality would return - for a while.
In silence on dusty concrete racks and wrapped in thick black plastic the electricity of Paris continued to pass by unperturbed by our invasion. Torchlight suggested an eternal warren of passages in either direction. Left or right it was all the same, following the cables as they snaked under the streets, dipping down below a Metro tunnel now and then, the dank reek of bitumen in the air - presumably the thick gungey oily paste that they coat the inner sections of wire in, the mess oozing out when the plastic splits. No doubt carcinogenic on the skin, definitely best avoided. The infrastructure here is quite different to the UK. These tunnels run all under the capital (and no doubt all the other towns and cities), are easily accessed and fairly easy to navigate. Junctions present the most interesting scenes, with the black flex running all over the show.
Our choice of exit was obviously made blind, since we could not see just what was above as the cast iron lid was pushed upwards. Shoving the lid sideways scattered the mob above who'd clearly spent too much time watching 50 Cent videos, and they were looking confused. If ds (grinning like a crocodile and evidently not French) wasn't surprising enough for these suckaz, then the sight of a pretty lass following him out surely sealed the deal. I rolled third and last, smiling at this gang of hoods before helping to re-seat the lid.
That night the fun didn't abate (does it ever?) and we returned to the Metro, this time to claim the disused Metro station at Croix Rouge. Similarly to St Martin it was closed during WW2 and never re-opened due to it's proximity to other stations in the area.
Resolutions should be made as and when required but none of us made the resolution that 2009 would kick off in such a relentless fashion, that's just how it happened. The night air was bitter and cold as we hauled ourselves up onto the gothic roof terraces of eglise St Laurent. The skyline was misty, Montmatre looked beautiful as always and it seemed a million miles away from the consumer shopping frenzy due to start back in England the next day.
St Laurent turned out to be full of surprises. Traversing the rooftops and rafters gave access eventually to a matching pair of spiral staircases, themselves leading up onto the roof and into the gothic spire. With barely room for the three of us to move, we had an even better view of this historic construction, almost a beacon standing proud above a district laced with scutters. Yet again it seemed the writers had beaten us to it, there artistic market pen already weathering on the wooden beams inevitably to be outlasted by the carvings of centuries past. But no time to keep still, the night and indeed the year were both just beginning.
Later with cider consumed and bored on a ride all the way to the extremities of the city we decided to open a door we shouldn't have and clamber about on the moving train. Somehow the staff got wind of our activities and at the next station RATP security guards boarded the train. One of them, radio in hand, fixed his interrogative glare and bawled his question at me for the second time as I sat in a seat trying to look innocent. Before I'd had a chance to offer back the standard "Je ne sais pas parce-que je suis Anglais" his eyes had wondered to the open door leading into the space between the two cars. On the floor sat three bags but the owners were nowhere to be seen. I was suddenly conscious of the small black digital camera in my right hand, lens extended, poised for action. As Monsieur RATP angrily locked the door, I slipped the camera into my back pocket and set about removing the memory card. My worries were misplaced as the secca marched off down the car to where q-x and ds were grinning like school kids with a porno, a drunk guy was still wailing on about the 'phantom outside the window' and the rest of the passengers were understandably confused.
A delayed departure and three stops later and we were at the end of the line - or at least, the end of the line for everyone else, including the additional security staff who were waiting on the platform. From the rear end of the train a pissed off looking guard was being dragged along by an Alsation, no doubt looking for some filthy foreign renegades to chew on. Too late, we were gone, bounding up the stairs and out into the icey night air, more misadventure on our minds.
Our entrance to the fenced-off compound was anything but subtle. Corrugated steal sheeting buckled and banged as we fought to hang on, dropping off on the other side into the dusty construction site. Here, according to a helpful site plan pasted to the outside of the site, we should find a 70ft deep shaft leading into the new extension of the Metro. Sure enough inside there was a fenced off void, furnished with galvanised steel stairs that would take us down into the tunnel workings below. A digital display politely informed us that there were zero persons below ground, although this contradicted a board of personnel tags that showed one guy as being down there. Soon there would be three more.
This article is part one of a two part series entitled 'Robbing the money train (and other short stories)'. The next instalment can be read here.
From one side of Paris to the other electronic signs were informing frustrated passengers that due to disturbances, Ligne 2 was now shut down. The mob followed a draft of cool evening upwards and out of the station and into the streets where the party was displaying riot tendancies. Dismayed gendarmes tried in vain to control the ringleaders - meanwhile a police car was being summarily vandalised. Some dusty rubber-clad adventurers (Cataphiles fresh from the quarries below Paris) passed bottles of beer and nobody was in a rush to move on. Eventually a one or two hundred deep group decision was made: the party would continue on a different line. The TFL staff back home would never have tolerated the epidemic of barrier-hopping fare-evasion that ensued.
Cutting off from the masses in search of slightly more constructive misadventures, we (your author plus dsankt and q-x) returned to the Metro via a different station and, avoiding shouts from waiting passengers ("Ne vous faites pas mal!") descended sur la voie and ran off down the tunnel. Timing was about right, reaching the air vent near the much-revered abandoned station of St Martin just as a train swept in from the opposite direction. We ignored the much-photographed tiled signs, old posters and multi-level platforms, instead opening a hatch onto the street above. Back in the land of the living we were still on the move. This had been nothing more than an entertaining way to reach our eventual destination which, for now, must remain secret but doubtless will be revealed in due course.
The next day it all continued, TF and I listening from the bottom of the shaft to ds talking to the man on the street, trying to shake off his demands to know what we were up to: "Is ok, I am not the Police, you can tell the truth". ds continued to wrestle with the cover as he responded to the curious kebab shop owner's questions. Hardly surprising that he'd been inquistive - the manhole was right outside his shop. "No really, EDF! Bon soir." With a grating and a thud the outside noise was reduced to a hushed murmur and we could continue down the two ladders and into the power tunnels. Above us normality would return - for a while.
In silence on dusty concrete racks and wrapped in thick black plastic the electricity of Paris continued to pass by unperturbed by our invasion. Torchlight suggested an eternal warren of passages in either direction. Left or right it was all the same, following the cables as they snaked under the streets, dipping down below a Metro tunnel now and then, the dank reek of bitumen in the air - presumably the thick gungey oily paste that they coat the inner sections of wire in, the mess oozing out when the plastic splits. No doubt carcinogenic on the skin, definitely best avoided. The infrastructure here is quite different to the UK. These tunnels run all under the capital (and no doubt all the other towns and cities), are easily accessed and fairly easy to navigate. Junctions present the most interesting scenes, with the black flex running all over the show.
Our choice of exit was obviously made blind, since we could not see just what was above as the cast iron lid was pushed upwards. Shoving the lid sideways scattered the mob above who'd clearly spent too much time watching 50 Cent videos, and they were looking confused. If ds (grinning like a crocodile and evidently not French) wasn't surprising enough for these suckaz, then the sight of a pretty lass following him out surely sealed the deal. I rolled third and last, smiling at this gang of hoods before helping to re-seat the lid.
That night the fun didn't abate (does it ever?) and we returned to the Metro, this time to claim the disused Metro station at Croix Rouge. Similarly to St Martin it was closed during WW2 and never re-opened due to it's proximity to other stations in the area.
Resolutions should be made as and when required but none of us made the resolution that 2009 would kick off in such a relentless fashion, that's just how it happened. The night air was bitter and cold as we hauled ourselves up onto the gothic roof terraces of eglise St Laurent. The skyline was misty, Montmatre looked beautiful as always and it seemed a million miles away from the consumer shopping frenzy due to start back in England the next day.
St Laurent turned out to be full of surprises. Traversing the rooftops and rafters gave access eventually to a matching pair of spiral staircases, themselves leading up onto the roof and into the gothic spire. With barely room for the three of us to move, we had an even better view of this historic construction, almost a beacon standing proud above a district laced with scutters. Yet again it seemed the writers had beaten us to it, there artistic market pen already weathering on the wooden beams inevitably to be outlasted by the carvings of centuries past. But no time to keep still, the night and indeed the year were both just beginning.
Later with cider consumed and bored on a ride all the way to the extremities of the city we decided to open a door we shouldn't have and clamber about on the moving train. Somehow the staff got wind of our activities and at the next station RATP security guards boarded the train. One of them, radio in hand, fixed his interrogative glare and bawled his question at me for the second time as I sat in a seat trying to look innocent. Before I'd had a chance to offer back the standard "Je ne sais pas parce-que je suis Anglais" his eyes had wondered to the open door leading into the space between the two cars. On the floor sat three bags but the owners were nowhere to be seen. I was suddenly conscious of the small black digital camera in my right hand, lens extended, poised for action. As Monsieur RATP angrily locked the door, I slipped the camera into my back pocket and set about removing the memory card. My worries were misplaced as the secca marched off down the car to where q-x and ds were grinning like school kids with a porno, a drunk guy was still wailing on about the 'phantom outside the window' and the rest of the passengers were understandably confused.
A delayed departure and three stops later and we were at the end of the line - or at least, the end of the line for everyone else, including the additional security staff who were waiting on the platform. From the rear end of the train a pissed off looking guard was being dragged along by an Alsation, no doubt looking for some filthy foreign renegades to chew on. Too late, we were gone, bounding up the stairs and out into the icey night air, more misadventure on our minds.
Our entrance to the fenced-off compound was anything but subtle. Corrugated steal sheeting buckled and banged as we fought to hang on, dropping off on the other side into the dusty construction site. Here, according to a helpful site plan pasted to the outside of the site, we should find a 70ft deep shaft leading into the new extension of the Metro. Sure enough inside there was a fenced off void, furnished with galvanised steel stairs that would take us down into the tunnel workings below. A digital display politely informed us that there were zero persons below ground, although this contradicted a board of personnel tags that showed one guy as being down there. Soon there would be three more.
This article is part one of a two part series entitled 'Robbing the money train (and other short stories)'. The next instalment can be read here.
